


a shepherd and a sailor

by goldearring (leoandsnake)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 1940s England, Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Bisexual Liam, Bisexual Louis, Bottom Louis, Coming of Age, Happy Ending, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Offscreen Period-Typical Homophobia, Oldschool Romance, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 23:17:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15011546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandsnake/pseuds/goldearring
Summary: Liam's life has been mundane since his family fled the Blitz for a small farm, but everything changes when a foulmouthed sailor falls out of the sky.





	a shepherd and a sailor

Liam did not have to fight in the war. When he turned eighteen, he wanted very badly to go, but was passed over on account of his vital job as a shipbuilder. His mother was greatly relieved by this; he was her only son, and his sisters had gone off and married. Everyone was safe.

And then the Germans blew up the shipyard. He didn't believe his father at first; he insisted that Geoff taken him down and show him. Geoff obliged; they walked down the hill in silence, and he pointed.

He didn't need to point. Liam could see very well the bombed and blackened warehouse, the shattered dock planks strewn up on the muddy banks like the Channel had vomited them there.

“Oh,” was all he said.

Geoff put his hands in his pockets. “Yeah,” he replied, squinting into the wind.

 

/

 

When the Blitz worsened, they went to work on his cousin Leon’s farm that straddled the French side of the Spanish border, far away from the fighting.

Leon kept sheep. Liam liked them, and he was good with the dog, so as far as work, that’s what he got up to, mostly. He would sometimes take a horse, but he liked to be on his feet in the field, keeping a careful eye on the sheep and lambs as they cut through the tall grass, snapping his fingers at the sheepdog bitch if she began leading them too close to the seaside.

It was a clear, windy summer day with choppy whitecaps on the water when a British soldier fell out of the sky.

By the time Liam let the sheep out to graze, it was mid-morning already. He was walking through the wheat field, keeping an eye on them as they ambled, buried to their hocks in the golden waves so they could get to the lush grass that grew closer to the cliffs.

They were almost there when the sheepdog’s ears pricked. She began sniffing the air. Liam looked at her in curiosity, and then he heard a soft groan.

“Oi,” he said sharply, unsheathing the knife on his belt. “Who’s there?”

No answer.

Liam followed the dog, who was nose to the ground and wagging her tail.

He came upon the parachute silk first. Meters and meters of it that he slipped on before looking up to see a groaning soldier was tangled in it.

The man was slight, and young, seemingly no more than twenty. More of a boy than a man. He was bruised and dirty, and flushed in the cheeks.

He looked up at Liam when he noticed him. “Hi there,” he said. He sounded English. Northern.

“Hi,” Liam said warily.

The boy nodded at the knife. “You stabbin’ me?” he said, between labored breaths.

Liam glanced down at his hand. “Oh. No.”

“Cut me free then, yeah?” He wheezed after he said this. It sounded like he’d had the wind knocked from his ribs.

Liam knelt next to him, squinting. He didn’t know the difference between the infantry uniforms, and he was suspicious by nature.

“I've heard,” he said, “about Germans putting on British accents...”

He spit at Liam weakly. “ _Fuck_ you!”

“It's only what I've heard.”

The soldier reached up with a shaking hand and yanked his dog tags up from under his collar, then held them up for Liam to see. They were green and red, like he'd seen before on British soldiers.

Liam exhaled. “Alright. Sorry.”

“It's alright,” he said. His face was wan, and vulnerable; his eyes were very blue in the warm French sun.

Liam looked more closely at the dog tags. “Louis Tomlinson?”

“That's me.”

“What're you doing all the way out here?”

“Ha,” Louis said, and his voice cracked. “You’re a limey, your accent’s near as strong as mine, what're _you_ doing here?”

Liam shrugged. “Blitz chased us out.”

“Well,” Louis said. “I was s’posed to be dropped ‘bout forty mikes north.” He took in a shuddering breath. “We got shot down. I jumped… I dunno what happened to the rest of the boys. Wind carried me like crazy.”

Liam examined the parachute silk for blood, then his uniform. He didn't see any, but: “You're hurt.”

“I did fall out of a damn airplane.”

Liam leaned in with the knife. Louis flinched.

“Shh,” Liam said, stroking his arm, gentling him like a horse. “I’m only cutting you free.”

“Wait,” Louis said, looking panicky. “I don't want t’ go back. Please don't make me go back.”

“You're hurt, they won't take you.”

“I ain't hurt bad enough to go home. Please. Me family needs me. I can't die in this fuckin’ war.”

He was sweating, pallid, and sounded so young and afraid. Liam ached terribly for him.

“How old are you?” he said.

“Twenty-one,” said Louis. He looked even younger.

“Look,” he said, “why don’t I patch you up, and we’ll go on from there.”

He couldn’t tell his parents or his cousin, he knew that much. They’d ring up the authorities in a heartbeat.

As he thought about this, a sheep wandered over and sniffed Louis, then licked his cheek. Louis laughed and smiled, and Liam's heart jerked. He had a nice smile.

 

/

 

Liam put him in the hayloft.

He didn’t know what else to do. At least it was warm up there, and the hay was the soft Timothy kind.

“Um,” he said, when he’d helped Louis climb the ladder, gotten him bedded down, and was kneeling next to him in the hay.

Louis looked up at him. He was nice-looking, and Liam felt funny and warm whenever they made eye contact. His gut squirmed like those eels they kept in drawers at pie and mash shops. They squirmed especially bad when Louis climbed out of his uniform and was left in only his undershirt and boxers. Liam had never seen that many tattoos; he wondered what each of them meant.

“I’ve got to get back to the sheep,” he continued. “If that’s alright... I can leave you a book?”

“What sort of books you got?” Louis said. As he lay there in the hay, he kept smiling at Liam in a way that made Liam think he was missing a joke.

“I dunno,” Liam admitted. “The Bible?”

Louis laughed at this.

“So, you’re a shepherd,” he says. “Shepherd boy saves me, offers me a Bible…”

“I’m not,” Liam says. “A shepherd, I mean. Shipbuilder, by trade.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Used to build with my dad.” He shrugged. “They bombed our shipyard.”

Louis’ light eyes flicked over his face. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. I like herding sheep too.”

“Yeah?”

Liam nodded. “It’s peaceful.”

Louis tipped his head back. The light coming through the tall barn window behind him lit his fringe from behind, giving him a halo. “I can tell you built things.”

Liam squinted at this. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Louis reached up with his arm that was less bruised, and squeezed Liam’s bicep. “Good muscles.”

This made Liam feel even funnier. He stood up and whacked his head on a low beam. Louis laughed at this.

“Ow,” he exclaimed. “Don’t laugh!”

“You’re funny,” Louis said, grinning.

“I’m not!”

“You’re not?”

“No!”

Louis continued to grin. His face was smudged with soot and dirt, still. He looked like how Liam thought the Devil might look — handsome, but feline, and with a sinister knowing to him. Didn't the Devil fall from heaven, too? He wasn't sure. He didn’t pay much attention in church.

“I’m bringing you that Bible,” he said firmly as he walked away.

“Bring me a pack o’ cards instead,” Louis said. “Then ditch your sheep an’ come play with me.”

 _Oh no_ , Liam thought in dismay as he climbed the ladder down from the hayloft. That’s just what the Devil would say.

 

/

 

Liam sat in the grass among the sheep and watched the sun sink down over the sea, setting it alight.

He was afraid to go back up to the hayloft. He thought he might have imagined Louis, that he might have fallen asleep in the middle of this warm day and dreamed him up. He was afraid if he hadn’t, because what was he going to do with him? He couldn’t hide him until the war ended.

 

/

 

When he did go back, Louis was asleep in the hay.

He looked small. The moonlight was lighting him up, making his fair skin glow. It was dappled with bruises. He slept on his side, his careworn face resting on his tattooed wrist.

His cheeks were still sooty. Liam wet his thumb, reached out without thinking and flicked it over his cheekbone.

Louis twitched in his sleep and then sat bolt upright, feeling under him like he was looking for a knife.

“Hey, hey,” Liam whispered, falling back on his arse. His heart was pounding. “I’m only checking on you.”

“Oh,” Louis said, his chest rising and falling hard. His face gentled. “Forgot where I was.”

“It’s alright.”

Louis shivered. Liam tugged his flannel off over his head and handed it to him.

“No, no —”

“No, you’re cold, take it.”

Louis hesitated for another half-second, then grabbed it and pulled it on.

“I’ll bring you blankets,” Liam whispered.

“You haven’t got to.”

“I want to.”

“You never brought me those cards,” Louis said, smiling at Liam as he did up the buttons. He had a nice voice. Scratchy, but sweet.

“Sorry,” Liam said.

“Don’t need a sorry. I slept for ages, anyway.”

Liam swiped at his nose. All this hay made him sneezy. “You feel better?”

Louis shrugged. His arms were a bit shorter than Liam’s, so he had to fold the cuffs. “Rest did me some good.”

He was hedging.

“I think you’ve got a broken rib,” Liam said.

Louis smiled crooked. “I think you’re right, shepherd.”

Liam realized then that Louis still didn’t know his name. “I’m Liam, by the way. Liam Payne.”

Louis glanced up at him. “Good t’ meet you, Liam Payne.”

“D’you want supper?”

“No,” Louis insisted.

“I can tell you’re hungry.”

Louis shook his head unconvincingly.

“Look,” Liam said, and rubbed his knuckles against his eyes. “It's no trouble.”

“It is. I'm sure you've hardly got food enough for yourselves.”

“We do, though. We had a bumper crop this year, we can spare some.”

Louis hesitated. “Just for tonight,” he said. “I'll move on in the morning.”

Liam didn't want to let him leave. “You ain't in no condition for that. I won't let you.”

“I'll leave on me own power.”

“No you won't. You can hardly walk.” Liam, newly emboldened, added: “Had to drag you through the field.”

“You did not,” Louis objected. “I just leaned on you some, that's all.”

“If you’re so hearty, climb down and go walk across it.”

Louis squinted at him through the bluish dark. “I won’t,” he says, “‘cos I don’t feel like it, but that don’t mean I can’t.”

“Alright,” Liam said indulgently.

He scowled. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

Louis ran his tongue over his teeth, then started laughing. Liam joined in. Outside, an owl hooted.

“I’ll go get you some food,” Liam said, and began climbing down. “And I don’t wanna hear about it.”

Louis was quiet, then. When Liam was walking across the hard-packed mud of the barn aisle, he heard a soft voice call down, “Thanks, shepherd.”

Liam turned. “You’re welcome, flyboy,” he called up.

Louis laughed. “I’m not RAF,” he called back. “I’m Navy.”

That explained the tattoos. Liam hesitated, then came a little closer. Their plow mare was in the stall across from him was asleep, swaying on her feet; he stepped lightly as not to disturb her.

“Why were you flyin’, then?” he called up the ladder.

“Going from one aircraft carrier to the next,” Louis said. He flopped out of the pile of hay and laid on his stomach to peer down at Liam. “You’re full of questions.”

Liam scratched the back of his head. “I just… I wanted to serve.”

“You could still enlist.”

“My mum would kill me. They need me here.”

“Hey,” Louis said. “You’re not missing much. It’s hell.”

“If it’s hell, then we _all_ ought to be in hell,” Liam said, stubbornly.

Louis’ face softened. “Wouldn’t want to see someone like you in that shit,” he says.

“Why not?”

Louis shrugged. “Guys like you are the first out front, and the first ones dead.”

Liam didn’t have anything to say to this. He tried to think of something, then ended up clearing his throat and walking away.

 

/

 

A week later, Louis was still their secret barn guest, taking sponge baths at midnight and hiding under a pile of hay anytime Leon walked in. Liam brought him all kinds of scraps from the kitchen; every time Karen peeled a potato, he was in like Flynn, snatching the curly peel from the depths of the sink.

“What’s wrong with our son?” Geoff said one morning, peering over the newspaper. “Why’s he a bottomless pit all the sudden?”

“I’m not!” Liam exclaimed, while stuffing apples in a bag.

Louis had a bit of cash on him when he landed, and sent Liam into town with a list of things to pick up and a letter addressed to Doncaster — no return address. When Louis handed it to him, Liam had looked at it for a moment too long, which made him pipe up, “Just so they know I’m not dead.”

“Right,” Liam said. “Um. What about — like, Britain? The Navy? They think you’re dead, too.”

“I know,” Louis said. “I know. I don’t want to get you lot in trouble for harboring a deserter. Soon as I’m patched up, I’ll go into town and call, tell them I was taken in by some nice French family that didn’t speak any English and I couldn’t get a phone ‘til now.”

Liam fiddled with the list Louis gave him, rubbing the paper between his thumb and forefinger. “You said you didn’t want to go back.”

“I was scared, I’d just fell out of an airplane,” Louis said. “I was being — y’know. ‘Course I’ve got to go back. They hang you for runnin’.”

Liam twitched at the idea of Louis being hung, or even jailed. “There’s got to be some way you could get out of it,” he says.

Louis shrugged.

 

/

 

Liam purchased Louis a carton of smokes, soap, and a few magazines, including a girly one. The shopkeeper, who knew him, laughed at this.

“ _Est-ce que vous fumez_?” he said.

“ _Non, non_ ,” Liam assured him. “ _Pour mon cousin._ ”

The shopkeeper winked hugely.

“ _Non, non!_ ”

 

/

 

Louis was delighted to see him return, and immediately lit one of the cigarettes.

“Barn’s gonna stink,” Liam said, settling into the hay next to him and waving his hand through the air.

“You know, your dad comes in ‘ere sometimes and smokes cigars,” Louis said, picking up the girly magazine. “Stinks loads worse than these do.”

“My dad doesn’t smoke cigars!”

“Oh, kid.”

Louis looked good smoking. He had already opened to the centerfold, and his blue eyes narrowed.

Liam sat, knees pulled to his chest, and watched him with ardent fascination. He seemed so much older, even though he was only twenty.

“They sell any ones with boys in them?” Louis said, his cigarette bobbing between his lips.

Liam tried to speak. His mouth was too dry — he swallowed some spit and coughed out, “Sorry?”

“Boys,” Louis said, and raps at the magazine with his knuckles. “I dunno. It’s France. They’re funny here, thought they might.”

“You’d like… boys?”

Louis shrugged. “Birds are good too. Just wondering.”

Liam’s head spun. His mouth went dry.

“Want a smoke?” Louis said, and held the pack out to him.

“Yes please,” he said, and took one.

 

/

 

They spent all day up in the hayloft, talking, with Liam taking occasional breaks to go check on the sheep.

As the sun set over the sea, he brought them up the hill and locked them away in the paddock. The sheepdog heeled alongside him as he headed up back to the barn. When he got to the barn door, he shooed her toward the house, then shut it firmly behind him.

“Oi oi,” Louis called quietly. Liam looked up. “Come play cards with me.”

He climbed up the ladder to find Louis sitting on a hay bale, wearing only boxers, an undershirt and his dog tags, with a cigarette in his mouth. He was shuffling a deck.

Liam’s throat did that funny thing again. He coughed and sat down tailor-style in the hay.

“What d’you wanna play?” Louis said, and blew out some smoke.

“Down at the shipyard, we used to play rummy,” Liam said.

Louis nodded. “Know how to play All Fours?”

“Nah.”

“Damn.”

Liam smiled at him. “Hey, look what I’ve got,” he said, and held up a bottle of French brandy he’d brought along.

Louis grinned. “Well well well. Where’d you pick that up at?”

“Nicked it off a friend of Leon’s who stayed here ages ago,” Liam said. “Miserable drunk, real mean. Made my mum upset and kicked the dog. So I took his brandy.”

Louis seemed to enjoy this quite a bit. “Kept it all this time?”

“Didn’t have anybody to drink it with.”

Louis’ grin spread. “I like the cut of your jib, shepherd boy.”

“Hey, quit calling me that,” Liam said. “I don’t call you fell-out-of-the-sky boy.”

“Well, first off, that’s a mouthful,” Louis said. “And I only keep callin’ you that ‘cos you act so henpecked about it.”

Liam gaped at him. “You’re a right little shit.”

Louis winked. “I am. Let’s play rummy.”

 

/

 

By the time the moon was fully up, the brandy bottle was empty and their cards lay abandoned off to the side. Liam lay on his stomach in the hay, watching Louis, who was lying on his back with his wrist over his eyes. His bruises and scrapes were slowly healing, but he still looked banged up.

Liam was captivated by him, all his funny little movements, the way his fringe cowlicked over his forehead — greasy in some spots and soap-stiff in others. He was growing a bit of a beard by then.

They talked about everything and nothing. When the talk turned to women, Liam told him about the few chances he’d had with girls back home, the dates he’d fumbled his way through. Louis seemed comforted by the normalcy of these stories. He kept smiling at little details.

“What about school?” he asked, finally.

“Oh,” Liam said. “Left round year nine.”

Louis nodded. “Me too.”

“Didn’t think it was for me,” Liam said. “Needed to start making money.”

“Aye, yeah,” Louis said, and he sat up, looking at Liam. Liam felt pinned by that gaze of his. It reminded him of catching the eye of a fox lurking in the trees near the henhouse. “Me too.”

“I liked making boats,” Liam said. “Liked working with my dad. I hope… I dunno. I’d like to find that same sort of work, when we can go back.”

The brandy was making him talk more than usual. Louis smiled, then reached out and squeezed his bicep.

“You’ve got a farmer tan,” he said.

“Do I?” Liam said, and looked down at his arm. He’d stripped down to a t-shirt and jeans, and there was a clear color division on his forearm where the three quarter length sleeves of his work shirts hit. “Ah, shit. I do.”

“You don’t normally?”

“Nah, we worked with full sleeves, or in undershirts when we were welding, since it gets so hot.”

Louis went quiet. Liam propped his chin up on his forearm, shifting on the scratchy hay so it would stop digging into his thighs. His eyes roved over Louis’ cheekbones, down across his jaw and then dipped to his neck.

“I’ve got a big scar,” Liam offered. “From welding.”

Louis flicked his gaze over with interest. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Liam sat up too, then. They drew closer to each other, close enough to make Liam quit breathing, or at least start breathing funny.

He tugged down the collar of his shirt, but that didn’t show it, so he just took it off and tossed it aside. The burn ran lengthwise over his right nipple, a crescent of puckered pink.

Louis reached out and grazed his finger over it. Liam tried not to sharply inhale. His head was spinning.

“Ouch,” Louis murmured.

“Got a friend with one worse,” Liam said, or rather babbled. “He’s a farrier, an’ he took a shoe — well the horse threw a shoe — hot shoe, he’d just got it on, horse threw it right at his head, got him in the ear, he’s got this funny circle of a scar —” he gestured with his hand.

Louis’ nicotine-stained, short-nailed fingers had not left his chest; they lingered there, and he was looking at Liam, right into his eyes.

The air was thick with hot summer and the smell of hay, cigarettes, and that lingering acrid scent Louis’ clothes had. Burnt-up jet fuel, Liam thought.

Louis, though, only smelled like smoke and soap.

Louis’ hand came up and grazed Liam’s cheek, setting his nerves aflame. Liam began to tremble.

“Hey,” he said, throatily.

“Hey,” Louis said back, smiling.

Liam knew what to do, then. He wasn’t dumb. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Louis’.

It was a dry kiss at first, then Louis opened his mouth, his hot wet mouth. Liam’s tongue pressed inside. His heart was going crazy in his chest, a staccato drumbeat. Below, a horse stamped its foot and swished its tail. Up above, Liam was pressing Louis back into the thick bed of hay, the two of them moaning as they collapsed together, warm sinewy bodies pressing together. Their hands scrabbled at each other, and Louis grabbed Liam by the hair. Liam gasped into his mouth. No one had ever done that to him before. No girl had ever been so bold.

They snogged desperately and needily, rutting against each other as they did. Louis’ body felt so good under him. He had a wiry male strength to him, but he was soft, too, in some places. Liam stiffened very fast, to his embarrassment.

“Gentle,” Louis panted as Liam rocked against him, “gentle on me rib, mate —”

“Sorry, sorry —”

“‘S’alright —”

They rolled onto their sides in the hay, moaning deeper as they nuzzled more closely. Liam was in a state of utter ecstasy. Nobody told him it could feel like this. Nobody told him there was so much more than what he knew.

He wondered about his cock, as it hardened. Would Louis touch it? Should he take care of himself? No sooner had this crossed his mind than Louis was wrapping his hands around his shaft, making his hips jerk in surprised pleasure.

“Oh,” he gasped.

Louis sat up and straddled him. “You ever fucked?”

His voice was deeper and higher all at once, scratchy, full of crackling energy.

“God,” Liam breathed. “No, no.”

Louis’ eyes widened. “Not even girls?”

“No, not yet — reckon I was gonna wait ‘til I got married —”

“Do you want to?” Louis said, and rolled his hips, pressing the flesh of his arse down against Liam. Liam made a choked noise and nodded.

Louis looked into his eyes, stroking his hair with one hand as he spit in the other and reached down between them. Liam wasn't sure what he was doing down there. All he knew was Louis’ cool blue gaze in the dark, the scratchy hay against his knee, crickets chirping outside the window.

Louis guided and coaxed his cock, then: “Move your hips —”

Liam obliged, and found to his shock that he was inside of someone for the first time. It was hot, and tight, and incredible.

Louis was biting his lip, but he looked pleased.

“Does it hurt?” Liam whispered.

Louis shook his head. “Only a bit.”

They laid down together, then, and made love in the moonlight. Liam stroked Louis’ fringe off of his face and listened intently to his soft moans, letting them fill his ears. He kept wanting to kiss him, which Louis seemed to find funny, or endearing — he smiled crinkly-eyed after every kiss.

When Liam felt like he might blow soon, he pressed his nose to the hollow of Louis’ slender neck, where he smelled the best. And Louis kissed him on the temple, murmuring that he was a good boy, doing a good job, while Liam rocked up inside him.

He came with a small cry. Louis pressed their foreheads together, kissing him, cupping his face in his hands and still gyrating his hips as if to milk the last from him. Then his hand went down between them and he worked himself off.

Louis came quickly, too, biting down hard on his lip. They lay there breathing heavily for a while, stroking and nuzzling each other. Liam grabbed for his discarded shirt and used it as a makeshift flannel to clean them up with.

Louis lay there and watched him as he did, gazing half-lidded at him. “You sure you’ve never done that before?” he said hoarsely.

Liam’s lip twitched, and he laughed and nodded. He felt light and strange in his chest. He was not as boyish as he used to be. Louis had transformed him here, in the quiet dark of the hayloft, transformed and bewitched him.

They cuddled close. It had cooled off, and the sea breeze was coming in through the cracks, chilling the sweat on their skin. Liam slung an arm across Louis’ chest and pressed his lips to his freckled shoulder, studying his face.

Louis exhaled slowly. “Want a cigarette?”

Liam considered this. That was what you were supposed to do after sex, or so he’d heard from older boys.

“Yeah,” he said.

Louis reached over, pawed at the pack that was lying open, then grabbed for his lighter. He lit his own, put the other between Liam’s numb and tingly lips, and lit it by touching them together.

Liam inhaled, then started coughing.

Louis watched him. “You don’t smoke?” He took a drag and blew out a perfect ring.

“Mum doesn’t like the smell,” Liam said.

“It’s good for the lungs,” Louis said. “Makes ‘em stronger.”

Liam cuddled up close to him again, and Louis wrapped an arm around him, running his fingers lightly down his shoulder.

“What’s the war like?” Liam whispered.

Louis sighed. “Liam…”

“No, I want to know… if you’re alright talking about it.”

Louis smoked more and didn’t speak for a while.

“It’s hell,” he finally muttered. “Boys younger’n me — younger’n you, even, that lied to get in — getting blown to shit. After a while you stop makin’ friends with the new kids ‘cos you know they’re gonna die anyway. I got drafted at eighteen, I got nearly a year of basic… these kids get a month at best. They’ve got no idea. They’re just cannon fodder. It’s hell.”

He leaned over to kiss Liam’s forehead.

“Don’t go,” Louis whispered. “If you can help it, don’t go. Please.”

“Okay,” Liam whispered back.

 

/

 

Liam walked around funny all the next day, his head in the clouds. He barely heard his mum calling him for breakfast, and he almost let the sheepdog herd his flock over a cliff.

“What’s gotten into this one?” Leon said at supper. He was whittling at the table.

Liam shrugged. He had snuck off earlier, and just spent an hour snogging with Louis in the barn. That was all he could think about. His head swam; he kept touching his lips.

“Reckon he’s got a fever,” Geoff said. “It’s from feeding the hogs barefoot. That’ll teach you.”

“I don’t,” Liam said, but his mum came over and felt his forehead anyway.

“You are sort of flushed,” she said.

“I’m not sick,” he insisted.

“Well, take it easy tomorrow,” Leon said. “The three of us are all going to market, I paid Francois to come take up the slack. He’s in better shape than I am. He can turn the sheep out, if you like.”

Francois was the mean drunk he’d stolen the brandy from. Liam wanted to argue, but this meant he could go squirrel away in the hayloft.

“Alright,” he said. “Sure.”

 

/

 

Liam hesitated outside the barn door that following morning, overcome by shyness that had drifted in like an overnight fog. What if Louis had decided, since he last saw him, that he hadn't been any good? Or what if it was all a joke at his expense? He knew all this to be irrational, but he'd never done that before — private, marital bedroom things. He didn't even know you could do _that_ with a boy.

Liam of course knew there were boys who got up to these sorts of things. One of them at the shipyard was like that, or so the rumors went. The way people talked about it, it had always struck him as a lark, just something to pass the time with, like drinking or cards.

But it didn't feel like a lark, what he'd done with Louis. A lark would not account for the profound stirrings of his newly overfull heart. It felt like the entire world had changed overnight. He felt like a grown man, now, like he'd burst into a place of full and vibrant color. And Louis was clearly experienced, so it was silly to think he would feel the same. He had been in a war. He was already a grown man.

Liam entered the barn with a quiet creak of the door and snuck up to him, climbing the ladder. Louis was laying there in a beam of sunlight like a cat, reading a magazine. He smiled widely at Liam when he saw him.

“Hey,” he said, his voice scratchy in a morning sort of way.

Liam handed him a few apples. “I can bring you some porridge…”

“Nah, that's alright,” Louis said. “C’mere. G’ us a kiss.”

Liam eagerly laid down with him in the hay, and they passed a happy half an hour there, snogging and running their hands gently over each other. Liam remained struck by fascination with Louis’ body; the ropy strength of his arms, the feminine dip of his waist and flare of his arse, the musculature of his back and thighs. And all of those blue-black tattoos stamped into his fair skin — pinup girls, roses, knives, birds, stars, circling his biceps and calves and forearms.

“You're a good kisser,” Louis told him with breathy approval, when they had laid down to cuddle.

“Am I?” Liam murmured, and ran his finger over Louis’ bottom lip. “I haven't done too much of it...”

Louis studied him. His eyes made it hard to tell what exactly he was thinking. “That's right. You said you’d never had it off before.”

“Most folk wait,” Liam said, somewhat defensively.

“Most folk ain't sailors.” Louis winked, reached for his cigarettes and lit one, then tipped his head to the side as he exhaled, always careful not to blow smoke in Liam's face.

“So you’re in the habit of robbing young men of their virtue?” he smart-mouthed back to him.

Louis laughed so hard at this he choked on smoke and had to press his hands down against the hay, wheezing, while Liam watched with concern.

“Your _virtue_ ,” he spluttered. 

Liam laughed. “I said what I said!”

“Only when I can tell they want me to,” Louis said when he’d composed himself, wincing and feeling at his injured rib.

“Alright,” Liam said, pleased and miffed all at once. “So… was it, um…”

He found, then, that he could not possibly ask what he wanted to ask, which was: did you like it as much as I did? But Louis seemed to sense what he was driving at. He rolled over onto his back, smiling and sweet-eyed. Liam’s heart stuttered and beat harder.

“You were good,” Louis says. “Wouldn't’ve clocked you for a virgin, if you didn't tell me.”

“Maybe I shouldn't've told you, then.”

“Nah, I was glad to know to go easy on you.”

Liam shifted in the hay, making a soft rustling noise, then climbed over him, hands on either side of his ribs. Louis looked up at him with contended interest.

“Don't you have sheep to herd?”

“I've got the day off,” Liam murmured. “Case you want a chance to go a bit less easy on me.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Louis reached up, then, and ran the back of his hand over his cheek — a gentle caress, like they were lovers in a movie. This simple touch somehow electrified Liam from top to bottom. “You're a nice-looking kid, you know that?”

Liam, emboldened, grabbed Louis’ hand and held it for a moment, then brought it to his lips and kissed it.

Louis smiled. It spread like honey over his face.

“Do men do those things in the Navy?” Liam said.

He chuckled. “Yeah.”

“ _You_ did those things, in the Navy?”

“It’s a war, love. Men’ll do most anythin’ to take their minds off it.”

“Isn't it illegal?”

Louis got a tender look. “Best things in life are illegal.”

“You can get kicked out for it, can't you? Buggery?”

“You can. Don't know any buggerers who ‘ave been.”

“How do you find them?” Liam said, feeling a sort of anxious urgency. No one he knew had ever said these things out loud; he himself had never been able to wonder them in his conscious mind.

Louis stroked his face again. “Who?”

“The other boys. In the war. If it's not allowed. How do you…”

“Oh… oh.”

Louis brought his cigarette to his lips, again, and smoked with his brow furrowed.

“You just know,” he said. “I dunno how to explain. It's a look, a touch… we've got little codes, and things.”

Liam was struck with a sudden, achy longing. He had no idea about any of this. Suddenly the world he'd always lived in seemed terribly small.

“How did you know about me?” he said in a hoarse voice.

Louis offered him the cigarette. Liam took a slow drag, then looked over at him. A beam of sunlight was hitting one of his light eyes directly, making it so pale that the pinprick of his pupil stood out like a photo negative of the moon in the night sky.

“Wasn't quite sure,” he said. “But I’d noticed you looking at me. And when I touched you, you didn't pull away. You leaned in.”

“That's all? A look, a lean?”

“That's all you get, most times.”

“But weren't you afraid? What if I’d took it wrong and socked you one?”

Louis laughed at this. “I'm afraid of lots of things, shepherd boy. I do ‘em anyway. No other way to live.”

“Hey, sailor. Don't call me shepherd boy.”

“Why not?”

“I’m only a temporary shepherd.”

Louis’ eyes got crinkly. “Oi, I’m only a temporary sailor. Anyway, I could tell you wouldn't sock me one.”

“Yeah,” Liam said. “I’ve never hit anybody, actually. If there's a fight, I’m the one holding guys back.”

“Good. It's not as fun as it looks.”

“Have you killed any Krauts?” Liam said, without thinking, and immediately regretted it. “Sorry, that's a rude question, isn't it?”

“I haven't, ‘s’far’s I know,” Louis said. “And yeah, it is, but I forgive you.”

They were quiet for a while. Louis finished his cigarette and stubbed it out between his fingers.

“I don't want you to go back,” Liam whispered, fisting Louis’ white undershirt in his hand.

“They'll hang me if I don't,” Louis whispered back, grinning even though it wasn't funny.

“Aw, they don't hang folk no more…”

Louis began to kiss Liam on his neck, where he was sensitive. Struck by a sudden curiosity, he slipped his hand down the front of Louis’ trousers, feeling around for his cock. Louis let out a soft breath.

“What do I do?” Liam whispered when he got the warm heft of it in his hand. It was a new and thrilling feeling. The other night, Louis had taken care of himself, and met his climax with Liam still inside him.

“Stroke it, like you do yours,” Louis whispered back.

 

 

/

 

After Louis came, he took Liam’s cock into his mouth and did things with it that Liam didn't even know could feel good. They held each other for a while, then Liam climbed down to find a flannel to clean up with, and went to check on the horses; Louis followed after him, yawning and stretching.

“Is your rib any better?” Liam called from the stall as he squatted next to their mare’s left hind, running his hand down it to look for heat. She’d been seeming sluggish to him, although he sometimes found it hard to tell.

“A bit,” Louis said. He leaned on the bars, peering in. “Quiet horse…”

“Only for me, actually,” Liam said, picking her hoof up and extending it. She didn't react to this. “You alright, girl? You just getting old and lazy?”

“Only for you?”

“Kicked Leon once, when he was picking her.”

“You're good with animals,” Louis said. “I watch you sometimes, out the window, with the dog and the sheep.”

Liam’s face and chest grew very warm at this. He looked down at the packed hay, trying not to smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Louis added, then (breezily, as if embarrassed by what he'd just said): “Bit boring up there in the hayloft.”

“Not as exciting as getting shot at all day, I imagine.”

“Only sometimes they shoot at us. Mostly they try to blow us up with mortars. Less work that way.”

Liam laughed, despite feeling like he shouldn't.

“I’d never rode a horse before the war,” Louis said. “I saw ‘em around. Pit ponies, like. But that's it.”

“I like them,” Liam said, standing up and brushing his hands off, then patting the mare on her shoulder. “My sister’s scared of them. But they're more scared of us —”

The barn door, which Liam had attempted to wedge shut with a pitchfork, made a creaking sound. Someone was trying to heave it open.

“Fuck,” Liam whispered. Louis drew back from the stall door, folding his arms, looking around for a place to hide.

“Lee-yam?” Francois called through the door. “Are you in zere? Ze door is stuck.”

“One moment,” Liam shouted.

“What the fuck do I do?” Louis mouthed at him.

“Hayloft?” Liam mouthed back, taking exaggeratedly loud but very slow steps toward the door.

Louis shook his head. “Not enough bales up there to hide,” he hissed.

“LEE-YAM,” Francois shouted. “Is someone in there with you? Open ze door!”

The door rattled again, then, hard enough to dislodge the pitchfork, and came rolling open with a thunderous crash.

Francois saw Louis immediately, and drew his Browning sidearm from his hip. He was injured in WWI, and unable to serve in WWII, but he always kept it on him, in case he had another opportunity to “shoot some fuckeeng Germans.”

There was a click as he cocked it back. Liam, without thinking about it for even a moment, jumped in front of Louis. Louis immediately tried to get around him, but Liam kept in step with him, keeping the short snout of the gun firmly in front of his own chest.

“Who ze fuck is this?” Francois shouted. “A horse thief?”

“WHO ARE _YOU_ , POINTIN’ A GUN AT _ME_?” Louis bellowed. He was tremendously loud for a small person.

“Louis —” Liam hissed.

Francois shook the pistol in Louis’ direction. “WHO _EES_ ZEES?”

“Look, mate,” Liam said calmly, trying not to look at the gun, “he's a British soldier, he parachuted from a plane and landed on Leon’s property a — a few days ago. I put him in the barn. He’s injured, I was just waiting for him to get better and then I was going to take a horse and bring him into town.”

Francois spit on the floor for some reason Liam didn't think himself French enough to truly understand. “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid moron?”

“Maybe,” Liam offered.

“He could be a Kraut! How stupid can you be?”

Liam held up a hand to gentle Louis, who had swelled with rage at this. “He's not a Kraut. He has British dog tags. He's in the Royal Navy. I know for a fact.”

“You called?” Francois hollered. “You called ze Navy? They confirmed this scrawny little boy is missing in action?”

“YOU LOOK ME IN THE FACE WHEN YOU CALL ME SCRAWNY —”

“He is a _deserter_!”

“I am NOT —”

“He's well enough to stand and walk and shriek at me, toss him back where you found him! And why have you kept zis from your cousin? ‘E said nothing to me about a secret sailor in the barn!”

“Francois,” Liam begged, “put the gun down.”

Francois squinted unpleasantly at him, but lowered his weapon and holstered it.

“I didn't say anything because we didn't want to make extra work for them,” he said. “I didn't want — you know how my mum worries, she'd be in and out checking on him, and Leon’d probably give up his bed. And if something went funny, if he ran off, or something, and they came looking for him, I didn't want anybody but me to get in trouble for harboring a deserter.”

“I’m not a deserter,” Louis shot back, and Liam turned and shot him a fiery-eyed look, trying to communicate _Shut your mouth when I'm lying for you._

These things were at least half-true, of course. But mostly he hadn't told anyone because he thought that as long as it remained a secret, Louis would stay. And it was all so fragile and tremulous, what was happening between them.

“I’ll go to town tomorrow,” Louis said. “I’ll ring them up. I'll go back.”

Liam felt fear and disappointment swell in his chest, spreading out, a dry heat. Nausea bubbled up in his throat.

“Fine,” Francois said, looking Louis up and down. “Good.”

 

/

 

 

Francois left early, to make it back while there was still light. Liam stood and watched his truck grow smaller and smaller on the dirt road, finally dipping out of sight beyond a hill. He cried, then. Just a few tears, but they were bitter ones.

He began walking back up the hill toward the house, and as he did so, Louis’ figure appeared. They walked toward each other until they met in the middle.

“My mum and dad’ll be back soon,” Liam said.

Louis looked up at him with a sort of complicated expression he couldn't quite identify.

“You know I had to go,” he said, his voice gentle.

“I did,” Liam said. “So… it's alright. You can have supper with us tonight, come sit in the house with the fire, ‘stead of shivering away in the barn.”

Louis smiled at him, his eyes twinkling in the golden light as dusk settled over them. “One last thing,” he said, and took Liam by the hand, leading him back up the path.

Liam followed along behind them. They approached the house and then passed it, walking by the sheepdog, who was snoozing under a tree.

Louis led him to near the cliffside, over where Liam had first found him in the tall waving grass. He turned and stretched up to kiss Liam, who wrapped his arms hard around him, pressing their frantic young hearts together, chest to chest.

“Don't go,” Liam panted, and they fell down in the grass, rubbing their cocks together through their trousers.

“It wouldn't be right,” Louis murmured, smoothing Liam’s hair back off his face. “It's us they're bombing, you know that, I've got to do my part —”

“They'll kill you —”

“Then I'll die with me chin up.”

“I want to enlist…” Liam kissed him passionately on the neck and chest, and Louis pulled his shirt off over his head, then started tugging Liam’s trousers down. “I want to serve —”

“No,” Louis said, sharply. “No, it's too far in, now, you’ll barely get any basic, they'll just throw you right into it and you'll get shelled to death. You’ll do some stupid noble thing, jump in front of a gun for somebody like you did for me and get killed. No, I won't let you.”

“I’d be good,” Liam cried. “I could help. I want to help.”

“No!” Louis grabbed him hard by the face. “ _Do not go_. You hear me? Don't you dare go die in that war.”

“I can't stand hiding here doing nothing, and now you're leaving me, I can't bear that —”

”We need people to build things back up when it’s all over, that’s who you are, not cannon fodder!”

”You’re not cannon fodder either!” 

Louis kissed him, then, hard and wet, pressing his tongue into his mouth. “Shush,” he said with difficulty, when he pulled back. His eyes locked to Liam’s, half-lidded and hazy in the sunset. “Just gimme something to remember you by…”

Liam pulled his own trousers down, then, feeling the cool breeze on his arse, and he slicked his cock with spit while Louis spit on his own fingers and massaged them inside himself. And before long he was inside of him again. His heart lightened, and his mind drifted — all he had to do was this thing he felt as if he had been born to do. They tried not to make too much noise as they moved together in the shadow of the high grass, pawing at each other with restless tenderness, kissing hungrily.

 

/

 

When his parents and Leon got home, Liam met them in the kitchen and explained the situation. They sat at the table, nonplussed, looking up at him, their faces lit by the little kerosene lamp on the table.

“That's where you've been getting off to with all those apples!” Geoff exclaimed.

“Yes,” Liam said, and hung his head.

“I thought you were taming a wild horse, or something.”

Liam thought, sort of stupidly: no, I was taming a sailor.

“You should have told me,” said Leon, who seemed nettled. “What if the Germans raided us and found him? We’d all be put up against the wall and shot.”

Once they had heard his whole story, they followed Liam out to the back porch, where Louis was sitting on the step. He had on Liam's flannel — Liam gave it to him, after they made love.

He had a wan, wary expression on, like a dog or child waiting to be disciplined. Looking at him tugged terribly at Liam's heartstrings, so he avoided doing so as he said, “This is Louis Tomlinson, British Royal Navy.”

Louis stood and offered his hand to shake. They all did.

“Thanks so much for having me,” he said. “Not that you knew you were.”

“Oh, love, of course, we’d do anything for our boys from the front,” Karen said. “My goodness, you're thin… Liam, have you fed him?”

“He was like that when I found him!”

“He's fed me good, miss,” Louis told her, with a little wink to Liam. “Actually, I think I've put on a few, doing nothing but hanging ‘round in a hayloft.”

“I’ll take you to town tomorrow,” Leon said. “You call the Navy. It’s not looking good for your boys in the North, you know that?”

Louis nodded with a nervous little jerk of his head. “Liam’s been bringing me newspapers.”

“So you understand what you’re going back to?”

Louis’ index finger twitched in a way Liam now knew meant he wanted a cigarette. “Yeah.”

 

/

 

Liam went to bed early, as always, so he could wake with the sun. Louis was on a trundle by his feet, wearing some clothes of Leon’s. Leon was quite tall, certainly taller than Liam, and his drawers kept slipping off of Louis’ arse.

Liam lay there in the dark and they listened to each other breathe. Neither of them spoke. For his own part, Liam’s chest was too tight and bound up for him to make words.

Eventually Louis got up from the trundle and very decisively pulled back the covers, slipping under them and spooning up against Liam, arse to his cock. Liam, grateful for the warmth, kissed the back of his neck. He would miss the way Louis smelled.

“I won't forget you,” he murmured. In his sleepiness, it was easy to say a ridiculous thing like that.

“Good,” Louis said. “Don't fancy myself forgettable.”

Liam laughed.

After a moment he added, in a sweet voice, “I won't forget you either, shepherd.”

 

/

 

Leon knocked on Liam’s door at dawn the next morning. Liam lay there with his wrist over his eyes as Louis puttered around, washing his face and collecting up his things, including the parachute, which he had carefully folded.

“Hey,” he said in a quiet voice, and Liam lowered his wrist. “You want to walk me out?”

Liam nodded. He loathed goodbyes, but he saw the reason for them. “Yeah. Lemme get some trousers.”

Leon knocked again. “Boys…”

“We’re coming,” Liam called, as he tugged a pair of jeans on.

Louis leaned in and kissed him. They swayed on the spot for a moment, pressing their tongues into each other’s mouths.

Outside, the sunrise was tossing golden light haphazardly over the French countryside. Liam, desperate not to think about Louis leaving, instead looked out over the sheep in their field and wondered if the trough needed emptying.

Leon went around the side of the house to go get the truck started, and Liam stood with his jaw tight so he didn't betray himself.

Louis turned to him, studying him, then took his face in his hands.

“What are you doing?” Liam murmured.

“I don't want to forget,” he said. “If I had a picture of you, I’d keep you in my wallet, right behind Ava Gardner.”

Liam laughed despite a surge of melancholy. “I only get second billing?”

“Well,” he murmured, “let me know when you wear a bathing suit as well as she does.” He kept studying him, his gaze intent. “Your eyes. That's what I want to remember…”

Liam leaned in and kissed him again, very briefly.

“We’re in the book,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Look me up, when you make it back home. If I ever get back to England, anyway.”

Louis laughed. Liam was going to miss his laugh.

Out of things to say, then, he settled for begging him, “Don’t die.”

“I’m gonna do my level best, shepherd.”

They heard the truck roar to life.

“Mr Tomlinson,” Leon called.

The two of them stared at each other. Liam wanted very badly to grab him and hang onto him. Louis must have sensed this, because he stepped back as if to spare himself being hung onto.

“Goodbye,” he mouthed, then winked and walked away into the golden morning.

 

LONDON, 1946

Liam had been living in his own flat (dingy, smelly, with two other blokes) for six months when he got the phone call.

He wasn’t expecting one. He still wasn’t used to having a phone in the house, and he was in the middle of cooking an egg for breakfast, besides. He almost didn’t pick it up in time.

“I have a collect call from a Louis Tomlinson,” the operator said smoothly. “If you accept the charges, I’ll connect you.”

Liam’s heart took off at a gallop. His hand, clasped around the slim black receiver, began sweating.

“Yes, yeah,” he said in a frenzy. “I accept, yeah.”

“Thank you.”

She connected him. Click. Liam, unsure of himself, said nothing.

“Hi,” Louis said, with that familiar mischief in his voice.

Hearing him was too much. It was like being visited by a ghost. Liam, weak in the legs, sank into one of the chairs around their rickety kitchen table. “I thought you were dead,” he said.

“Dead? Not quite.”

Liam was out of things to say, then. It was so hard to talk on the telephone. He preferred face-to-face. “Why’d you call me collect?”

Louis laughed, and Liam’s heart leapt at the sound. “I’m a bit skint, right now. It’s a long story. Let’s get drinks.”

“Where?”

“I know a club. It’s for, you know. Our type.”

“Our type?”

“Poofters.”

Liam hesitated to respond, even though he knew his flatmates weren’t home. “I dunno if I fancy myself a poofter.”

He could practically hear Louis rolling his eyes over the phone. “Whatever,” he said. “Take this address down, and meet me there tonight at nine.”

“I don’t get any choice in time or venue?”

“No, because I’ve been off getting fuckin’ shot at on your behalf.”

Liam laughed. “I thought it was the mortars that were the problem.”

“Ahh,” Louis said in delight, “so you did listen to me when I talked, then?”

“A few things slipped through.”

“Take down this address, shepherd.”

Liam smiled. “I’m a stevedore, now, actually.”

“Well well well… moving up in the world. Stevedore doesn’t have the same ring to it, though.”

“You could call me Liam,” he suggested.

“No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“‘Cos that’s what everyone else calls you. I’m special.”

 

/

 

The club Louis sent him to was in a cellar, around the back of a building that was a boarding house in front. Getting in required a password (which Louis had provided to him) and the door was guarded by a very large man, who scrutinized Liam and asked him if he was a copper. The way he said it was so authoritative, Liam questioned himself for a second.

“I’m not,” he finally said, somewhat defensive.

“Look like a copper,” the bouncer said. “Don’t look like our kind.”

“Why?”

The bouncer grunted. “Your haircut, I s’pose. Well, go on in.”

The club was more crowded than Liam would expect. The ceiling was low, and it was humid inside, enough to make him regret wearing a jacket. He waded past the people who were hanging in the entryway, smoking, down a step to where there were booths lined up against a wall.

He tried not to gawk, but it was hard — he’d never seen men kiss in public before. More than kiss, he’d never seen this level of casual physical intimacy. Men had their arms slung around each other, were stroking each other’s faces, smiling at each other, making prolonged eye contact. Even women were nuzzling and kissing in some of the booths, or chatting away while holding hands. His eyes couldn’t contain all of it. They roved without landing.

After a minute or two, he spotted someone perched on a stool toward the end of the bar, chatting with the bartender. Slim, with tattoos criss-crossing the backs of his arms. His hair looked a bit different, but Liam knew it was Louis. The hard tug in his gut and his suddenly breathlessness confirmed it.

Someone sat down across from him, a man who was handsome in an offbeat way, and somewhat older. “Haven’t seen you before,” he said.

Liam blinked at him. “I haven’t been here before,” he said helpfully.

The man laughed. “Yeah, I figured. What’s your story?”

“Sorry?”

In his peripheral vision, Liam saw Louis slip off his barstool. He gave a little start, then approached them with that loose-hipped walk of his. “Tony,” he called over, “fuck off.”

“I saw him first,” Tony complained.

“No, you didn’t.” Louis drew up close to the table. “This is an old friend of mine, so beat it.”

This was clearly banter, but with enough of an edge to it that Tony, after studying Louis for a long moment, stood up and relinquished his seat. “Come find me, when Tommo starts boring you,” he said to Liam before walking away.

Louis blew a raspberry at him. “Wanker.” He turned to Liam, then. “Hi there.”

Their eyes met. The sound around them faded in Liam’s ears, like he was at the movies and the projector had melted through the film. He was wracked by a sudden shiver, despite the humidity. “Hi,” he said.

Louis smiled. “Been a while.”

“A long while. When did you get back?”

He huffed out a sigh, then flagged down a waiter. “Two pints, please.”

The waiter departed, and Louis pushed up his sleeves. Liam stared at his tattoos. He so rarely saw people who had them, at least not that many. Every time he had, over the last three years, he’d thought (with an accompanying flip of his stomach) about Louis.

“I was sent home three months after I went back,” Louis said.

Liam squinted at him. “Sorry?”

Louis smiled, tight-lipped. “I got caught,” he said. “With my CO. I was fuckin’ him in his tent. To spare him the embarrassment, they gave me a buggery discharge, sent me home.”

“Jesus Christ. I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “Better than bein’ dead. Half my friends are, now. Lost four alone at D-Day.”

“But the discharge, isn’t that — it’s bad, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Been a bit hard to find legal employment.”

“What’ve you found, then?”

Louis laced his tattooed fingers together. “I work for a nightclub owner,” he said. “Doing the sort of things he needs done.”

“Breaking kneecaps?”

He grinned. “Nah, I’m not really the type for that, physically.”

“What, then?”

“Mostly furnishing people wiv drugs, collectin’ on debts. Sometimes a gun needs to be dropped in the Thames, or something.”

“Right,” Liam said.

“I don’t love it,” Louis said. “But I make good money, enough to help me family out.”

“You did call me collect, earlier.”

He laughed. “Paycheck’s a bit late. Bobbies are closing in on me boss. It might be the end for him, actually. But I’ve got good contacts, I’ll find something new.”

“Come work at the docks with me,” Liam said.

Louis smiled wistfully at him. “I wish I could, love.”

His pulse quickened at being called love, and he felt momentarily reassured. Something was nagging in the back of his head, though. “If you got discharged that soon… why didn’t you ring me up ages ago? And I mean, even besides that, the war’s been over a year now.”

The waiter interrupted them by finally bringing their pints around. Liam sipped at his foam while watching Louis, who was clearly working out what to say.

“I tried to track you down,” he said, “when I got back. I think you were still in France.”

“You had the address. You could have written me.”

“I know. I was afraid your family’d read anything I sent.”

“You didn’t have to write a Dear John. Just a hullo, I’m alive, that would’ve been nice.”

“And I was scared.”

“Scared of what?”

Louis looked down, running his finger up and down his glass, cutting a slim line through the frost. “That you’d regret it, Mr ‘I’m not a poofter’.”

Heat rose to Liam’s cheeks.

“Well, I never did,” he said. “I just know what people say. I know what they think. But as far as it goes for me, personally? Nothing that felt that good could be a bad thing.”

Louis wrinkled his nose at this, smiling. “Christ,” he said with relish. “Forgot how fucking earnest you are.”

“That a problem?”

“No, no… I actually really like that about you.” He looked back up at Liam, and Liam shifted on the hard wooden booth. The way that Louis looked at him always made him somewhat nervous. He felt so _seen_ by him — nowhere to hide, nothing to hide behind. “You look older.”

“I got older.”

“You look like a man.”

His voice got lower when he said this, throatier. His gaze was like liquid heat. Liam’s cock throbbed, and he nervously drank more of his beer. It dribbled down his chin. He wanted to say _you made me a man_. What he said instead was, “Can we get out of here?”

Louis immediately stood, tossing a handful of cash on the table. “You read my mind.”

“Wait,” Liam said. “Hang on. What made you ring me up?”

Louis smiled. “Your flatmate owes my boss money,” he said. “I was doing a bit of investigating into him, spoke to your landlady, and she says, ‘Oh, yeah, he lives upstairs, with Peter Sheffley and that Payne boy.’ I thought maybe it was a sign, y’know? Like how it was your field I fell into.”

Liam stood then, too, drawing closer to Louis, who gazed up at him with a needy look. “Reckon it was,” he said.

 

 

/

 

 

In lieu of kissing, they shared a cigarette in the back of the cab, passing it back and forth on every puff. Liam loved to watch Louis smoke. He had such a practiced ease, like he was playing jazz saxophone, his movements loose but precise.

Louis lived in the East End, on a dodgy street. Liam pointed this out as they walked up to his flat, and Louis produced a switchblade, his teeth flashing in the dusk. Liam’s cock throbbed again.

“You don’t have flatmates?” Liam said as they walked into his dingy one-room, which was made homey by the amount of plants sheltered within. He hadn’t thought of Louis as the type to keep plants; it was endearing. 

“Sometimes me sister or one of me mates kips on the sofa ‘ere,” Louis said. “But other than that, no. Don’t need ‘em, the rent’s dirt cheap. You want a cuppa?”

Liam said he did, and Louis went over to the stove. Liam bypassed the couch and took a seat on the edge of the bed.

Louis glanced back at him. “Goes right for the bed, does he?” he teased. “Bit forward…”

“Oh, _sorry_ , was I to think we came back here to play rummy?”

Louis’ mouth fell open. “What a mouth on my nice shepherd boy,” he said, but looked quite proud.

Liam smiled. “Remember, I work at the docks now.”

“Thought you did before! Shipbuilder?” Louis came over to him, kneeling on the bed between his legs.

“That’s a different sort of crew,” Liam said.

They snogged hard for a while, with a lot of tongue, and rubbed at each other’s stiffening cocks. They were only interrupted by the kettle squealing.

“Fuck,” Louis muttered. “You still want tea?”

Liam nuzzled his throat. “It’s you I want.”

“Alright, hang the tea, then.”

He did hurry over to turn off the stove, though. While he was doing that, Liam wriggled out of his trousers.

Louis sashayed over to him, stripping as he went and tossing his undershirt over his shoulder. As soon as he got close to the bed, Liam wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him down, kissing him. Over all of the nights he’d spent remembering how it felt to touch Louis, his recollection of him had slowly morphed and melted like wax until it was closer to a pure imagining than the reality of his body. Having him back in his arms, he was overwhelmed; it all flooded back at once. The delicate slimness of him, the various notes of his smell. Cigarettes and bar soap. A new one, too — a cologne with a bit of spice to it. Liam’s arms encircled him harder, and he rolled over, crushing their bodies together. He couldn’t get enough of him.

“I missed that,” Louis sighed in his ear.

“What?”

“How you grab me tight like that…”

Liam, underneath him, drew back. They looked into each other’s eyes.

“I haven’t been with anyone else,” he whispered. “After you… I’ve gone with girls, I’ve been dating and fooling around. and things. But I haven’t, um, done like what we did. I was always gonna save it for my missus, so... You’re the only person I’ve done that with.”

Every aspect of Louis softened at this — his eyes, his mouth, his posture. He looked surprised, and quite touched. After a moment of this, he joked, “Aye, well, no pressure, then,” as if to break the tension.

Liam laughed. “But it is. I’ve got nothin’ to compare you to, so you’re golden.”

“Unless I’ve got worse at sex…”

“Does that ever happen?”

“Not in my experience,” Louis said with a puckish grin.

They lay down together on the bed, kissing more, running their fingers through each other’s hair. Louis undid Liam’s fly and slipped his hand down the front of his trousers, rubbing at his cock, which was so sensitive by then that Liam let out a soft cry just at being touched.

“D’you want to do it how we did, before?” Louis whispered, kissing him on the jaw. “Inside me?”

“Yeah,” Liam whispered back, arching into his hand. “Yeah, I want that.”

This time there was a new element in the mix: a plastic tube with KY Jelly stamped on the front. Louis squeezed a large dollop into his palm and then began to slick up Liam’s cock. He shuddered at the cool feeling.

“What is this?” he said.

“Better’n spit.”

Liam watched while Louis worked himself open, and then Louis looked up at him with a fiendish gleam in his eyes and replaced Liam’s fingers with his own. Liam’s cock throbbed at the casual intimacy with which Louis allowed him to trespass inside his body. It didn’t matter if Louis had a hundred blokes giving him the pole and a hundred birds sticking their tongues and fingers up there, Liam still felt special just for getting to do it too. It occurred to him that maybe that meant something, didn’t it, about how much he liked Louis? The thought was gone as soon as it came, though.

He began to rub at him with vigor, eager to replace fingers with cock, and Louis moaned and ran his hands up into his hair, giving a shivering arch of his back on the bed.

“Blimey,” he said huskily, “if you're gonna make me make noise like that, I might as well put a red light in me window.”

“I like when you make noise like that,” Liam said, flushing with prickly heat in the face and chest.

Louis flicked his eyes over Liam’s face. “‘Ave you thought about me? These last couple years?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Yeah? You touch yourself and think about me?”

Liam closed his eyes. He was dizzy now. “Yeah.”

“Me too,” Louis whispered. “Been thinkin’ about you an’ me in the hayloft, that first time. Don’t think nobody’s ever looked at me the way you did.”

Liam let his fingers slip deeper in Louis, working into him, splitting the slick heat apart. His cock was hard between his legs, dusky and flushed. Liam reached out with his free hand and ran it up the shaft. Louis gave a shuddery inhale.

“Looked at you how?” Liam whispered back.

“Dunno… dunno how to describe it…”

Liam reached out and stroked Louis’ fringe back off his sweaty forehead.

“Like that,” Louis said. “‘S’wot I mean. Nice, like. All gentle.” 

Liam leaned in to kiss him and let their bodies fold into each other. Louis wrapped his legs around him, and Liam started to work his cock in; Louis shuddered and pulled at his hair.

“I was lonely when you met me,” Liam admitted, his voice strained.

“All alone with the sheep,” Louis whispered.

He was as warm as ever, waves of heat coming off him like they do from a fireplace, his skin thrumming with it. Liam buried his face in Louis’ slender chest as he worked his hips. Louis began to move his pelvis in unison until their movements became a harmoniously machinelike pistoning, a movement like ocean waves.

Louis’ hands worked his way into Liam’s hair, tugging it by the roots and rubbing his scalp. Liam rewarded him with hard kisses to his wiry chest and the little nubs of his nipples.

Louis let out a long sigh and moved his hand to Liam’s jaw, caressing him. Liam moved his hand to Louis’ stiff and weeping cock, stroking him.

“Oh,” Louis said, his voice husky.

“I didn’t forget how,” Liam said, and pressed a kiss to the arch of his cheekbone.

They grew closer, Liam settling into the crook of his neck and nuzzling his freshly shaved throat. His cock felt marvelous, thick with blood and crushed by Louis’ body like a dying star. Louis’ arms had circled around him at some point, and were stroking him, his sweaty back and his hair. He had an arm around Louis’ waist, holding their stomachs flush, and then not long after he’d begun to pump his hips, he was coming.

Liam sighed heavily and ceased to move. Louis stroked his hair harder, running his nails over his scalp.

“You’re still good at that, shepherd,” he murmured. “Don’t go to sleep on me now...”

Liam got his hand going again. Louis was slick, and it got all over his palm, between his knuckles.

He liked doing this. He liked making someone else feel good, and he liked the power of it — Louis writhing on the bed and making little noises. Liam had forgotten how demonstrative he was. He was like a thoroughbred filly Liam’s friend had let him try at the track a few months ago; she’d spooked at every movement, and he barely had to nudge her to get her moving, much less use a spur. Yeah, Louis was like a little thoroughbred. He’d tell him that, if he could figure out a way to make it sound more like a compliment.

Louis came more quickly than he expected, arching off the bed, and the two of them lay there breathing heavily for a while. Liam reached up to wipe his sticky hand on Louis’ sheets, and Louis just laughed, not bothering to stop him.

“I’d like a cuppa,” he said. “And a smoke. You?”

“Both of those sound fantastic,” Liam agreed.

Louis nudged him. “Go put the kettle back on, then.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

Louis grinned, and it was like a shot to Liam’s heart. “You wanna fuck me again? Put that kettle on.”

“You want me to fuck you again, put it on yourself,” Liam challenged him.

Louis’ mouth fell open. He was grinning wider now. “The dockworker mouth on ya!”

“I thought you liked that!”

“No, I love it. Alright, I’ll put the kettle on, seein’ as you’re me guest. But c’mere and cuddle me first.”

Liam lay down next to him in the bed, and Louis settled companionably against his chest. He reached behind Liam to the bedside table, and Liam heard the click of a lighter.

Louis brought a cigarette to his lips and took a drag, then offered it to Liam, who took it gratefully. The sweet hit of tobacco lingered in his mouth.

Louis dragged his short nails over Liam’s chest. “You still have that scar,” he murmured.

Liam glanced down. “Ah, right.”

Louis kept stroking him as he smoked. “I’ve got a scar too now,” he said, and pointed out a small one below his ribs.

“Oh yeah,” Liam said, and ran his thumb over it. “How’d you get that?”

“Remember when you asked me if I’d killed any Germans, and I said no?”

Liam’s heart sped up. “Guess so...”

“Well, I have now.” Louis smiled in a sort of tremulous way. “He ‘ad me cornered behind a farmhouse, knifed me in the gut, right there. I shot him dead ‘fore he could kill me.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“That bother you?”

“No,” Liam said, “but I’m sorry to hear it. Terrible thing.”

“I still have dreams about him,” Louis said. “The look on his face. Wasn’t any older than I was.”

“I’m so sorry, mate.”

Louis shrugged, but looked unhappy. Liam pulled him closer, squeezed him in the scratchy sheets like one of those snakes that crush Amazonian tribesmen to death. He kissed Louis on the head.

Louis laughed and kissed Liam’s neck in return. “I can’t smoke when you’ve got me like this,” he said, waving his cigarette hand uselessly behind Liam’s head.

Liam kissed him on the nose.

“Cor, ‘e’s some sort of lunatic,” Louis said, sounding uncharacteristically shy and with color rising in his cheeks. “Kissing me everywhere but the lips, now.”

“I’d like to see you again,” Liam said, ignoring his bluster. “I’d like to keep seeing you.”

Louis pulled back from him and took a drag off the smoke. His lids were low over his pretty eyes.

“I’d like that too,” he said. “You want me, though? You want a criminal-for-hire in your life, a disgraced fag Kraut-murderer?”

Liam laughed. “I want you. Yeah.”

Louis put the cigarette between Liam’s lips and escaped his arms, getting to his feet, his flaccid cock bobbing between his legs like those naked statues they had in some museums. “I’m not abandoning you,” he said. “I’m just putting the kettle on.”

Liam smoked and watched him cross the room to the stove. His nice bum had a tattoo on it (another nautical star, like he had on his arm) and marks from Liam’s nails. “Alright,” he said. “I like mine strong, please.”

“Ooh, big man likes his tea strong,” Louis teased.

“Who’s big man?”

“You. You got bigger, stevedore.”

Liam looked down at his arms. He supposed he had.

Louis came back to him, and since Liam was sitting up now, he took the opportunity to sit on his lap. They kissed for a while, then, which was nice.

“You wanna take me out this week?” Louis said, running his nails up Liam’s back. “See a film, walk in the park?”

“I’d like that, yeah,” Liam said. “I’d like to go back to that bar.”

Louis searched his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Never seen that before, men touch each other in public like that...”

“It’s something, innit?”

The kettle went off, then. Louis left him alone in the bed again, and he lay back against the headboard and watched Louis make the tea, just naked in the kitchen there.

Liam realized then that he felt totally at ease. It was a funny thing, because here he was teetering on the edge of a cliff with a man he thought was dead, a self-described criminal, a tattooed hoodlum. But a hoodlum with sweet eyes and a good heart, who Liam couldn’t imagine being hurt by. A hoodlum who wanted to be taken on a movie date. A hoodlum who’d been polite to his mum. A hoodlum who’d had all his options stolen from him. Liam had a big weak spot in his heart with Louis’ name on it, a part where the joists had rotted and crumbled, and he didn’t mind at all.

Louis returned with the tea and a smile on his face. “You like milk in?”

“I’ll take a bit of milk.”

Louis sat on the bed near Liam’s feet and set the tea tray between them.

“I meant what I said about a job at the docks,” Liam said. “I could vouch for you. Could say you got railroaded. Y’know?”

Louis laughed as he poured milk into his chipped teacup. “You’re cute,” he said.

“I’m cute?”

“Yeah.”

Liam raised his own teacup so he could hide his smile, and they sat there drinking in companionable silence.

“Are you gonna break my flatmate’s kneecaps?” he said.

“Sorry?”

“You said he owes your boss money.”

“I told you I don’t break kneecaps!”

“You gonna threaten him, though? It’s just he’s a nice bloke, Jim. He probably doesn’t have the money ‘cos his dad’s been poorly.”

Louis softened. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. If you could give him a break, I’d appreciate it.”

“Well,” Louis said, “I’ll give him a few more days… if me boss goes in the nick before I come collecting, then I can, y’know, lose his debt slip.”

Liam grinned. “You softy...”

He flapped his hand. “Ah, it’s only twenty pounds he owes. Not worth ruinin’ anyone’s life over. You tell him to quit fuckin’ gambling, though.”

“I will,” Liam said.

“Good.”

Liam studied him, then raised his teacup to his lips again. “You’re still a softy, mate.”

“Fuck out of here,” Louis said, but he was smiling.


End file.
